After the euphoria of the first week of trading in euros, European stock markets seem to have calmed down and most of the action in the past few days has involved profit-taking after last week's big rises. Dealers believe that the next few weeks may be volatile, with most of the fourth-quarter results from the US coming through.

Just as most of the turnover on the way up involved the leaders, the pattern was the same on the way down with the big financials and larger capitalisation industrials suffering most of the losses. AIB lost 40 cents to #16.25 (£12.80), Bank of Ireland was 10 cents easier on #19.05 (£15.00) while CRH was 35 cents lower on #14.50 (£11.42). Other financials were also weaker - although in lower volumes - with First Active down 5 cents on #4.75 (£3.74). Merger partners Irish Life and Irish Permanent bucked the downward trend with Irish Life up 5 cents on #9.30 (£7.32) while Irish Permanent gained 10 cents to #14.68 (£11.56). Smurfit was unchanged on #1.80 (£1.42) while profit-taking brought Fyffes back 8 cents to #2.22 (£1.75) despite the positive reaction to the full-year results and earnings upgrade for 1999.

Irish stocks on Nasdaq were weaker, and none more so than Icon, which was trading $3 down on $30 (#25.99) despite good results. Dealers said, however, that Icon volumes were minuscule and that the $30 price did not represent the real value of the shares. Others to weaken included CBT, Ryanair, Elan and Saville.

(# signifies the euro)